Friday 23rd September 2016

Shed of the Week: Mini Cooper

A Shed debut for the 21st century Mini, though it is one with 185,000 miles...

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Gird your loins and indeed loin your girds as we proudly announce another first in Shed history: the debut appearance of the new MINI in our weakly (sic) showcase of road legal motors for under a thousand quid.

Sadly, it's not a Mini but a MINI, so it's a brand rather than an icon. It's not a first-year 2001 car, which is a pity as there's some value starting to accrue on those. But if you just want a car to trundle around in rather than keep under wraps, avoiding the '01 cars is no bad thing as Shed remembers them having some odd foibles, like headlights that switched themselves on and off depending on the angle of the steering. Plus, you do get a little faux-history in the early red and white colour scheme, complete with pepperpot wheels.

The classic Mini spec!

These first Mini Coopers had no superchargers and therefore not much in the way of performance. As a result the Cooper has been seen by many as the least attractive model in the range and generally less desirable than the basic (but at least honestly so) Mini One. A good lesson there for greedy marketeers who think it's clever to stretch a brand to breaking point.

Up until 2006 or so the engines for these cars were made in Brazil, the result of a joint venture between Chrysler and BMW. In normally aspirated 115hp form the 1.6 motor was dependable rather than inspiring, but at least it wasn't the disastrously wobbly K-Series. You didn't get the Getrag 5-speed of the slightly later S, either, but a Rover-designed six-speed 'Midlands' 'box. Essentially, Brazilian engines apart, Mini owners were buying into a British car that had been built to German standards.

All Minis, Coopers included, came with a nice selling point of fundamentally good handling. In light of our Shed's mileage, you might wonder about that, but the service history is claimed to be full so with any luck the original suspension will have had at least some of its components replaced by now.

When it's in good order, the chassis - a sweet (and at the time expensive) setup of MacPherson struts and anti-roll bar at the front and multi-link Z-axle at the rear - is definitely one of the Mini's strong points. The interior design, a fairly successful pastiche of the original Mini's big central speedo look, was also groundbreaking.

We've no pics of this car's interior, unfortunately, so we don't know which of the various options packs the one and only owner signed up for, but we do know it has half-leather seats. That's good, but Mini front seats do tend to take a beating, mainly because there's so little room in the back. The tip-up mechanisms wear out too.

Vibration over time will give rise to many of the Mini's other problems. Dedicated Shedmen are taught from birth to ignore the often mendacious bleatings of sensors, but in the Mini's case any warnings - either electronic or audible - need to be heeded. Rattly dashes, flaky electrics, airbag warnings, dicky speedos and lying fuel gauges can all be precursors to deeper troubles.

Get a good look, because that's your last pic

That posh suspension looked great at the design stage, and it delivered on the road too, but have a good look at the rear wishbones on this high-miler and watch out for any pulling to one side as that could be indicative of misaligned front turrets - a costly fix.

Noises from the Rover gearbox and from the power steering are very common. Steering column bearings wear out too, and you can also be tripped up by the central locking system or by shorting-out wiring on the ABS pump. None of these are cheap to mend.

The value of keeping this car within the Mini service network is debatable, given the high labour charges that were (and still are) a convenient by-product of something launched as a 'premium' vehicle. You may be lucky with this car and benefit from the solitary owner's maintenance work, in which case you'll be able to mooch around town with all the Tarquins and Henriettas having spent a fraction of the money they'll have splashed out on their Minis. The fact that the non-functioning window and air-con haven't been sorted is a bit of a chin-stroker, but if things get sticky a quick mop and some back-to-black on the plastic bits should have you out of there without too much financial angst.

Here's the ad.

This is a one owner full service history car that has been driven mainly on motorways hence little wear (185k Miles) red with white roof and wheels this really clean car drives well. Lots of options like half leather air con elec Windows remote locking and much more. Electric window on drivers side not working (motor works as you can hear but may have come off rail) air con will need re gassing and that's it's. Otherwise it goes well. A very cheap car so no offers or timewasters please. Long mot.

[Arsecati]

My girlfriend has had hers since new in 03. Covered nearly 120k miles in that time and the first bit of work (apart from regular, meticulous servicing) I've had to do on it was change the clutch on it last week (the release bearing exploded!). That's the first time she's never been able to drive it in 13 years! An absolute pig of a job, as everything above and below has to come out (from battery box to entire subframe!), but when BMW would have wanted nearly €1400 to change it over here in Dublin, it does put a fairly big grin on my face that I did the entire job for under €200 in parts - and that was including replacing the two outer and inner balljoints also (may as well seeing as they're cheap and I had the whole subframe out!!).

Don't know about the air-con, but the electric window could be fixed by a good bang on the door above the speaker - a common fault and well known solution!

She's been on about changing 'Bob' for YEARS now, and we've test-driven many a replacement. But she only needs the car for weekends and she absolutely loves him, so after 13 years (and a new clutch!), he's staying put for another while! Oh, and she has the Chili Pack with the sports suspension: it may have bugger all power, but handles like a loon!

5 speed gearbox though - don't know where the 6 speed comes from? :/

[Arsecati]

??? So you're basically coming on to a public forum and telling me - a complete stranger - that my girlfriends 'fat'??????

Gandahar said:

It's a fat overweight girls car for for fat overweight 2016 girls.

First two words of the entire thread.

"My girlfriend"

If it had started off

"My mate Jim"

I'd like to see one of these take on the Hatfield overpass like my mate Jim did in the 80s

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.745847,-0.224676,3...

Sadly now only used by dogs rather than polytechnic students in a small car for a dare.

Brown Mini clubman, cracking car.